Fun for the Whole Family!

The educational road trip leading up to a spectacular vista is not always appreciated by those for whom all that effort was expended. Artist Richard Sargent was also a father and the complex and often hilarious child-parent dynamic was a regular theme.

Lookout Point Richard SargentThe Saturday Evening Post July 18, 1953

Beached

Retirees in the 1930s may not have known how to dress down for the shore, but they seem to be enjoying the sand just as much as their modern-day equivalents do.

Back Again

When you go away for what looks to be about three weeks — judging from the number of newspapers on the lawn, strewn about the front entry by some lout of a paperboy — there’s a lot of cleanup to be done. The weight of this realization is quite evident in the droop of Father’s shoulders.

Home from Vacation John FalterThe Saturday Evening Post August 23, 1952

There may be no place like home, but after a long trip, Rockwell’s family requires rest.

Rockwell’s original painting Going and Coming hangs in the Norman Rockwell Museum

After WWII ended, America was on the move. With an economy on an upswing and higher levels of disposable income, record numbers of families packed up the station wagon, loaded kids in the backseat, and hit the open highway.

Norman Rockwell celebrated the emerging trend in the August 30, 1947, Post cover Going and Coming. While seasonal or topical subjects often inspired Rockwell’s covers, in this two-panel portrait of a family en route to and from a summertime trip we find an example that’s both.

In Going, Dad confidently grips the wheel leading the expedition with Mom at his side cradling the youngest. Anticipation spills into the backseat where big brother and pooch lean into the wind, while little sister blows a bubble about to pop as her brother razzes oncoming cars. Unfazed by it all, Grandma sits stone-faced, staring straight ahead.

In Coming, the excitement has fizzled. Pop struggles to keep his eyes open. Mom, still cradling little sis, drifted off miles ago, while the boys, pooch, even the wide-eyed bubble blower are running out of steam. Unfazed by it all, Grandma sits stone-faced, staring straight ahead — did she even get out of the car?

To help readers unravel the story line, Rockwell provides clues. In the lower panel, to signify nighttime, he shows the tiniest portion of a lighted lamppost through the car window. Another clue: The pennant dangling from the door tells us the outing was to Bennington Lake, where — judging from the fishing pole sticking out the rear window and weathered rowboat lashed to the roof — Dad managed to get in some angling. Rockwell also lets us know Grandma indeed exited the car — if only for a souvenir plant.

There’s a familiar feeling to the entire scene. (We’ve all been on family outings like this.) You can almost hear the eternal refrain, “Are we there yet?”

“Tex’s Motorcycle”

“Tex’s Motorcycle” by Stevan Dohanos From April 7, 1951

“When Stevan Dohanos said that he searched far and wide for a special type of motorcycle to paint,” wrote Post editors in 1951, “we got set for some fearfully technical details.” The artist’s specifications? “I just had to have a blue-and-silver one.” The object of pre-adolescent lust he found was owned by “Tex” Keeler of Georgetown, Connecticut (hence the name of the painting). Not surprisingly, motorcycle buffs love to buy reprints of this handsome cover.

“Wanted Posters”

“Wanted Posters” by Stevan Dohanos From February 21, 1953

Three young cowboys, six-shooters at the ready, are looking at the wanted posters in the local post office. Never mind the amusement of the postal employee observing the scene—the bad guys don’t stand a chance. Dohanos didn’t have to go far to find the young male models. They were his sons.

Dohanos, who painted 123 Post covers, was born in Lorain, Ohio, the son of Hungarian immigrants.

“Playing House”

“Playing House” by Stevan Dohanos From January 31, 1953

If you were a child of the female variety in the 1950s, one of your favorite playtime activities was probably playing house. This was what girls did before girls’ soccer and computers. The refrigerator carton is dressed up to make a perfectly lovely domicile, and every considerate hostess made sure the dollies got their share of tea and goodies. Do little girls still play house? I suppose there’s now an app for that.

“Doing Dishes at the Beach”

“Doing Dishes at the Beach” by Stevan Dohanos From July 19, 1952

This is called “Doing Dishes at the Beach,” but I prefer to call it “Whose Vacation?” Clearly Dad is relaxing, and the kids are enjoying themselves. Heck, even Rover is having fun. Looks like Mom got short shrift. I have to love Dohanos for seeing male/female inequities even in 1952.

“Lighthouse Keeper”

“Lighthouse Keeper” by Stevan Dohanos From September 22, 1945

If a picture is worth a thousand words, this Dohanos cover tells a gentle story. The lighthouse keeper is trimming the weeds while the push lawnmower and the clothesline help define the times. The striking lighthouse on this 1945 cover was the West Quoddy Light, Lubec, Maine.

“Stop and Pay Toll”

“Stop and Pay Toll” by Stevan Dohanos From April 7, 1956

Life’s little stories include life’s little irritations. Admit it, your blood pressure is rising a bit just looking at the woman holding up the line at the tollbooth. There’s change in here, somewhere. Well, we hope. Heaven help the people behind her if she left her change purse at home. But if they have a problem with that, they can take it up with the extra-large dog.

Unfortunately, by the 1960s photographs were taking the place of art on the covers of the Post. Dohanos shifted his considerable talent to a position as chairman of the National Stamp Advisory Committee. He is quoted as saying, “Artists are always interested in seeing their work reproduced. Imagine seeing your work reproduced 4½ billion times.”

“Toddler Empties Purses”

“Toddler Empties Purses” by Stevan Dohanos From November 22, 1952

My favorite Dohanos cover has always been this toddler from 1952. Through the bedroom door, we can see the grown-ups having a pleasant get-together, but what they cannot see due to the stack of coats and fedoras on the bed is the toddler having his own rockin’ party. Unfortunately, he is having all this fun with the ladies’ purses, opening and scattering the contents: compacts, keys, cigarettes, sunglasses, money, and so on (click for close-up).

Questions on covers from The Saturday Evening Post? Email me at d.denny@saturdayeveningpost.com or simply leave a comment below.

]]>http://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2011/09/23/art-entertainment/great-covers-stevan-dohanos.html/feed11Cartoons: Vacation Timehttp://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2011/08/22/humor/funny-vacation-cartoons.html
http://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2011/08/22/humor/funny-vacation-cartoons.html#commentsWed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000http://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/?p=36717Whether it’s Vegas, camping, or a trip on the open road, it seems like everyone is on vacation this month. And, as always, our Post cartoonists are there, too!

“Hello, Jim? It’s Carl. I just called to tell you how good it feels to get away from it all!”

From Jan/Feb 2004

I’m not sure what they’re “getting away from,” unless it’s the guy on the phone. Die-hard outdoorsmen would sneer at this idea of “camping.” But the RV could solve problems that come up in the next two cartoons.

“It says, ‘Microwave for three minutes on high.’”

From Mar/Apr 1997

The problem with “real” camping is that there’s no place to plug in the microwave. Or the TV. Or a hairdryer. This 1997 cartoon was by Martin Bucella, whom you met in a recent “Meet the Cartoonist” feature.

“Look! Burritos!”

From Jan/Feb 2000

Now this is camping. The stars are your ceiling and nothing beats that wonderful smell of a campfire. What could be better? Oh, well, yeah, there are those pesky bears…

“The good news, son, is, you won’t be paying any estate taxes.”

From Mar/Apr 2000

Looks like the folks should have gone camping instead of hitting the casinos. I found this keeper in a 2000 issue of the Post.

“Right about here—there’s a tear in the map.”

From Mar/Apr 1997

The folds in the maps are a pain to drive over, but the tears really mess up a trip! If this 1997 cartoon ran today, the caption would read, “Recalculating…”

“Could you suggest some place to go where my husband’s cell phone won’t work?”

From Jan/Feb 2005

A vacation with a workaholic is no vacation. On the other hand, one of the wilderness campsites above might have poor phone reception. Want to go camping, lady?

“Whoever said ‘getting there is half the fun’ never had a connecting flight in Chicago.”

]]>It’s 1931 and the prices are incredibly low. You can buy bread for just 7¢. A quart of milk is 12¢. The national average for a month’s rent is $35. It’s hard to read these prices and not assume that life was a lot less expensive in those days.

With gasoline at 17¢ a gallon, and new Ford sedans available for a mere $450, Nina Wilcox Putnam told Post readers there was never a better time to drive to California.

The best bargain on the American market today is a trip across the country, which can now be had for practically the same price as staying at home.

Automobiles in 1931, she reports in her Post article, “What’ll It Cost Me To Drive To the Coast?” have greatly improved over the past ten years. When she first drove from New York to California in 1921—

I carried spare parts enough to make up a second car, including new magneto points, and used every darned one of them before the first California real ­estate salesman was sighted.

The roads are better, too. Back in 1921, she says, you wouldn’t think of driving across the western states without an axe “for chopping brush to get you out of gumbo roads during Missouri rainstorms” and an extra set of suspension springs “because you were practically certain to break a spring on what were playfully nick­named ‘roads’ in Arizona.”

But even in 1931, Porter says, you had better bring better along a length of strong tow-rope, and a waterbag to hang on the front of the car so you won’t run out of water in the desert.

“And ah, yes, I almost forgot a water­proof tarpaulin. No matter how good the trunk on the back of your car, take it from me you’d better cover it with a tarpaulin. It’s a big square of treated canvas, and it really does prevent dust and moisture from working into the luggage and ruining that one good suit or dress which you’re taking along in case you feel like changing some night at a stylish hotel.

The modern driver of 1931 now has a choice of cross-country routes. Most travelers take the National Road, which runs from Atlantic City to San Francisco, but she recommends a new route between Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles.

If you are sick of cities and want a vacation from them; if you are tired of passing trucks and of being held up by traffic stop lights, let me submit the new Midland Trail. I’ll guarantee you’ll hardly meet a truck, see an advertising sign or lose a moment through traffic sig­nals.

But let’s return to the question in Putnam’s title: just how much does it cost to drive from New York in California in 1931. Before she started, a New York travel agent had told her—

“With a small car it will cost you five cents a mile, including good but not fashion­able hotels, food, gas and oil, and ordi­nary running repairs. We figure it will take you nine days.”

When she reached her destination outside Los Angeles, Putnam found that she had actually spent a little less than the predicted $165.

Before there were motels, travellers stopped overnight at rustic motor camps, whose comfort level can be guessed by the picture above.

That’s a sizeable figure for a year when unemployment had risen to 16% and was continuing to climb. Yet it’s fairly inexpensive for nine days of sightseeing, hotels, and meals.Yet you could take the same trip for much less today.

Adjusted for 80 years of inflation, $1.00 in 1931 has the purchasing power of $14.50 today. So Putnam’s trip cost her the equivalent of $2,392 in 2011 dollars.

Today, the drive from New York to Los Angeles is 500 miles shorter. Using the gas prices of this last week, AAA’s fuelcostcalculator.aaa.com, determines that a new, inexpensive car (comparable to what Putnam drove) would consume $440 in gas. Furthermore, you wouldn’t need nine days to cover that distance. While I’ve known people who drove that distance in a heroic, three-day marathon, I’ll allow a modern driver six days (450 miles/day) and a daily allowance of $80 for hotels and $50 for food.

The total cost would be $1,220. Divide that number by 14.50 to reverse inflation, and the price in 1931 dollars, would be $84.

Even with the price of gasoline so high today, our per-mile cost has dropped from 5¢ to 3¢ in 80 years. This doesn’t even factor in the three days saved by driving modern highways in more dependable cars—and three days is just as valuable in 2011 as in 1931.

]]>Looking forward to a much-needed vacation but not sure about leaving your furry friend behind? We’ve got some advice from the experts on the best ways to travel with your whole family in tow.

Plan Ahead

Not all hotels allow pets inside, so before you leave, research hotels near your stops and make reservations at places you know you can take pets. That way, you know your pet will be welcomed wherever you go. Some hotels even have special VIP accommodations for visitors with pets.

Pet owners should “stay at a place that will respect and welcome them,” says Dan Douglas, the general manager of a Best Western in Allen Park, Michigan.

“We’ve had so many great experiences with pets and pet owners,” Douglas adds. “Problems are rare and far between.”

It’s also a good idea to look into restaurants and activities in the places you’re visiting. Be sure to choose pet-friendly places to go. If not every place on your agenda allows pets, make sure you have the appropriate equipment to leave your pet in the hotel for a couple hours. Notify the front desk and put a “Do Not Disturb” sign on the door so the cleaning service doesn’t come in while you’re gone.

You should also check to make sure there are vets in the area you’re visiting. “Like people, pets on vacation do things they wouldn’t normally do,” says Dr. Meryl Kardon of Back Bay Veterinary Clinic in Boston. Owners should know where to go in case their pet has a medical emergency.

Visit Your Vet

Bring your pet in for a checkup. Make sure he or she is up to date on vaccinations. Some states require you to present rabies vaccination confirmation before you cross the border, so you need to get that from your vet and keep it handy. Many airlines require a certificate of health from within 10 days of the flight. This also applies to a return flight. If you’re going somewhere for more than 10 days, Dr. Sara Rudwell of the Broad Ripple Animal Clinic in Indianapolis, Indiana, recommends that you find a vet in the area you’re staying to do a pre-flight checkup.

You should also talk to your veterinarian about medications or anything else your pet might need to stay comfortable and healthy on the trip. Don’t try any medications or sedatives without your vet’s approval, since they could cause problems or bad reactions, particularly while you’re in the air.

“They could have trouble breathing, or their blood pressure might be dropping,” says Dr. Julie Moodoyan of Southwood Animal Hospital in Tallahassee, Florida. “Particularly on an airplane, it’s hard for pets to be monitored.” In fact, she says many airlines won’t allow a visibly sedated animal onto the plane.

Get Your Pet Acclimated

Make sure your pet is used to traveling before you set out on a long journey. If you’re driving in a car, take smaller trips around your hometown to give your pet practice with being in the car.

If you’re using a kennel, carrier, cage, or crate to transport your pet, either in a car or an airplane, have your pet spend some time in it at home. The kennel will need to be big enough for your pet to sit, stand, and turn around.

Stranger Safety

If you need to transport your pet and don’t want to do it yourself, there are several service options available, depending on your location. However, make sure to do plenty of research on any company you want to hire. Many pet transportation services have been accused of harming or even killing pets in their care due to neglect or abuse. Make sure you have thorough information—some companies have even been known to fake recommendations to get people to hire them.

“On the whole, it’s not the greatest idea,” says Dr. Kardon, though she adds that most pet transporters are very hard and good workers. “Check into the number of pets being transported and the crowding situation.”

It’s always best to check with your vet and others you know and trust who might have experience with pet transportation services to make sure you hire a good company.

Safety First

While you’re traveling, one of your main concerns should be making sure your pet is safe and secure. Always keep your pet in a kennel or strapped into a seatbelt. And even though dogs love sticking their heads out the window or sitting in the back of a pick-up truck, both are dangerous and result in a high death toll for dogs.

Never leave your pet unattended in a car. Not only is there a risk of pet-napping, but pets left in cars can overheat or freeze, depending on the weather. This can also be the case while you’re on the road. If you’re too hot or cold, then your pet probably is, too.

Staying Comfortable

Pets require more than a good kennel to travel comfortably. Be sure to supply your pet with a couple of familiar toys to make the journey more enjoyable. Keep plenty of water handy so your pet doesn’t get dehydrated in the car. It’s always wise to bring your own from home, since your pet might react badly to strange water.

Also, don’t feed your pet too much right before you start out or while the car is in motion. Your pet could get carsick, and that’s not comfortable for him or for you.

Dr. Moodoyan recommends that you bring several familiar toys and blankets for your pet. She says pheromone sprays can also help make your pet feel at ease.

“They utilize the pet’s own pheromones and decease the pet’s anxiety,” she says. She adds that the sprays are odorless to humans. You can find a spray at most pet stores and vet offices.

Pets on a Plane

Today, many airlines allow cats and smaller dogs to travel with you instead of in the cargo hold, which is more comfortable for both of you. Whether or not this is the case, it’s always best to book a nonstop flight to your destination rather than dealing with tricky layovers and plane changes.

Be sure to make reservations in advance so your pet gets a spot on the plane, since some airlines have limits on how many and what kind of pets can travel. “Pets traveling in the cabin require a reservation to ensure no more than seven pets are booked on any single flight,” according to American Airlines.

Make sure that you follow the airline’s regulations about kennel size and vet checkups, particularly since your pet might have trouble adjusting to cabin pressure. Before you leave, “Ask the airline appropriate questions,” says Dr. Rudwell. She advises double-checking on the airline’s pet policies as well as checking the weather to make sure your pet won’t be too hot or cold during the flight.

To make things as easy as possible, walk your pet outside the airport before you take off, and make arrangements to register near the time of departure, so your pet doesn’t spend hours sitting at the airport. In case of an accident while in the air, place absorbent puppy pads or towels in the kennel.

Keeping Track of Your Pet

Plan ahead and make your best friend’s trip a great one!

While you’re traveling, there’s always a chance that your pet could get lost or stolen. Keep him in a collar with your name, address, and phone number.

Many pet institutions are recommending that you have a microchip installed before you leave. These small chips can be read by pet hospitals, vets, and shelters across the country. They make it easy to get information on your lost pet and return him to you quickly.

The microchips, which are about the size of a grain of rice, can be “easily implanted under a pet’s skin,” says Dr. Moodoyan. “Any vet’s office can do it.

“I always recommend a microchip and collar,” she adds.

The procedure is safe and inexpensive, so talk to your vet about it before you leave.

]]>http://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2010/07/19/health-and-family/pets-animals/travel-pet.html/feed1Life in the Shadow of a Distant Warhttp://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2010/07/10/history/post-perspective/life-shadow-distant-war.html
http://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2010/07/10/history/post-perspective/life-shadow-distant-war.html#commentsSat, 10 Jul 2010 11:00:12 +0000http://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/?p=24759Part one of a series on the hopes and disappointments of Americans enduring a lengthy war overseas.

]]>Americans were busy in 1944. They were pushing the Japanese forces back across the Pacific and preparing to retake the Philippines. They were facing the German army in France and slowly shoving it back to Berlin.

But Americans were also living and working in quiet towns and peaceable cities, never hearing an air-raid siren, spotting an enemy bomber in the sky, or even seeing an enemy soldier. And, unless they had the bad luck to be born to Japanese parents on the west coast, they never saw a military operation.

Yet their lives were hardly tranquil. They lived in gnawing uncertainty about the war’s progress, the fate of a loved one in combat, and even the possibility that America could still lose the war. They also lived with food shortages, gas rationing, and the impossibility of buying automobile tires or even a new pair of shoes. For many, the 1940s looked a lot like the grim 1930s.

The future, though, was another matter. It easily accommodated any wish for a better life. The thought of peace and prosperity must have been dizzying, particularly for the young men, who would only have vague memories of life before the Depression and war.

Now, with all the new technology generated by the war effort, life was going to be better than ever. Anything was possible.

This spirit of post-war predicting is captured in a Post article from August of that year: “The Coming Boom in Vacations.” According to its authors, America wouldn’t just beat its swords into plowshares, but into fishing rods and camping trailers.

If having fun ever needed any justification, it has that justification overwhelmingly now… Our great responsibility for the future is to create peacetime work in a volume at least comparable with what we have been doing for war.

An important item helping to keep our economy in blooming good health can be the activities engendered in keeping ourselves individually healthy, mentally and physically, by getting a larger share of the out-of-doors.

A considerable part of what we mean when we say “the American standard of living” involves our power to rove and play.

And a considerable part of the new recreation industry the author anticipated would involve camping and hunting. He quoted the head of nation’s Fish and Wildlife Service:

“Right after World War I, there was a thirty-per-cent increase in the number of hunting and fishing licenses in the United States. Much of that increase was due to the fact that a lot of city boys had newly learned to live out-of-doors during their military service and had likewise learned to use firearms skillfully. This time almost every able-bodied young man has been drawn into military service. When these men are restored to civil life, their wives and children will certainly share to a considerable extent in their newly won proprietorship of the American woods and fields and streams.”

Ironically, American industry would enable its citizens to get back to nature. The end of gas rationing, the resumption of auto manufacturing, and the growth of passenger air service would give families new access to America’s 13 million acres of National Parks.

The automobile did much to further both the use and the preservation of the parks. Among the guardians of the Yellowstone, 1922 stands as a kind of frontier year. One per cent of the visitors arrived in automobiles then. But thereafter the change was sensational. In the five years between 1922 and 1927, thanks to automobiles, more visitors came to the park than had come in the previous half century.

By saving travel time en route, vacationers are going to gain time to play. Whether you work in Hollywood or Brooklyn, if your vacation begins on a Friday night, on Saturday you can begin spending your vacation period at your goal, whether it be the slopes of Mt. McKinley, the Great Smoky Mountains, Lake Placid… etc.

The author also expected that military equipment would soon appear on the shelves of sporting-goods stores.

Will this G.I. hammock, watertight and insectproof, become standard vacation gear?

A major part of war production has been concerned with the making of new things to enable Americans to live out of doors in health and reasonable comfort.

Probably the most popular single appliance, if the soldiers were asked to vote on it, would be a companionable little stove intended to be a kind of supplement to any motor vehicle, jeep, truck, reconnaissance car, tank or your car. Its fuel is the same gasoline. When taken out of its neatly fitting cylindrical container, that container becomes a stew pan. When the folded top of the stove is opened, it looks and functions just like the burner on your gas stove. Since one of these stoves, complete, weighs only a pound, you could easily and habitually carry in your car one stove for each passenger.

There will be a companion piece to that stove. It is a six-pound item… in which a soldier can have a night’s rest in a jungle, no matter though the ground beneath him be ankle-deep mud. No tent is necessary; this is a tent. The tent part is simply a cloth roof, which is a part of a hammock with a zippered envelope of mosquito netting. As used by the military in the jungles, this little fabric home is simply tied between any two trees conveniently spaced. The soldier inside sleeps as dry as if in a cocoon.

The rubber boat, because it is not merely a portable but a packaged boat, represents, potentially, a geometrical expansion of fishing and hunting opportunities. This package, in combination with airplane, automobile or jeep, means that any trip can become, at will, an expedition.

Some of these products, with modification, became staples for modern campers. Others, like the following, never got farther than being a war-time fantasy:

Recently the sales manager of a New York sporting-goods store received a letter which confirmed exciting conjectures about out-of-doors life after the war. This letter was probably the first civilian order for an amphibious tank. It is wanted by a Maryland duck hunter, and he is ready to pay $2000 for it.

The order was accompanied by a cutting from a newspaper, a picture of the amphibious vehicle being used by the United States marines wherever they are making landings on hostile beaches.

And the amphibious tank is, of course, but one more item in a catalogue of relatively new and wonderful inventions being produced in America because of the war, all of which lead the entrepreneurs of outdoor sports to believe a boom in their business waits only for peace and demobilization.